Misery is the best word that can be used to describe the situation in Gaza. The impoverished coastal enclave is cut off from the world because of the Israeli siege on it. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty. Press TV has talked to Mick Napier, a member of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, as well as Maxine Dovere, a journalist and political commentator, to discuss the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Napier believes what has been happening in the Gaza Strip for the last ten years or more is a “crime against humanity,” adding that Israel’s “overarching goal” is to remove as many Palestinians as possible and replace them with Zionists.

“It is part and parcel of the Zionist project to cause pain and suffering for the people of Palestine to drive as many away as possible and replace them with Zionist Jews from around the world but if that cannot be done, then they should be kept in the most atrocious conditions in the West Bank as well Gaza surrounded by walls and prisons and deny the human rights that most people take for granted,” he said.

The analyst also noted the Israelis are allowing in just enough food to cause misery and suffering but not such as to cause actual starvation, which might provoke a worldwide reaction.

He went on to say the responsibility of this “terrible crime” lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Israelis, the Egyptian government, and the Western countries that endorse it.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The Tel Aviv regime has also waged several wars on Gaza since 2008. Thousands of Gazans have been killed or maimed in the Israeli wars and a significant portion of infrastructure has been destroyed.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an end to the decade-long Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, describing the situation in the coastal Palestinian enclave as one of the most “dramatic humanitarian crises.”

Napier further maintained that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “engineered” by think tanks in Tel Aviv to cause huge amounts of harm to the Palestinian population.

He said there is an “orgy of ethnic cleansing” in the whole of Palestine, arguing that what is happening to the people in Gaza is a kind of “instrumental genocide.”

“What we are witnessing is the strangulation of a people in a concentration zone on the shores of the Mediterranean, a deliberate infliction of suffering,” he said, emphasizing that it is no secret that the Israeli authorities want all of Palestine, and in order to reach their goal, they will intensify the demolition of Palestinian homes and the construction of Jewish settlements.

According to the analyst, if the siege of Gaza is lifted, it would be “wonderful and fantastic” but until the colonization of Palestine ends, there can never really be any hope for the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile, Maxine Dovere, the other panelist on the program, said the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is mainly due to the fact that the materials sent to the coastal enclave have been given to “militants” rather than the civilian population.

She said the closure of the border by Egypt and Israel only limits trade but does not cause the suffering of the people in Gaza.

Israel enjoys close cooperation from Egypt to implement the all-out land, aerial, and naval embargo on Gaza.

Since 2013, Egypt has largely closed off its only shared crossing with Gaza and destroyed hundreds of tunnels that provided a vital lifeline for the economy of Gaza.